And then he saw what he might have seen before if he had not been so intent on what was happening down on the road. There was another horseman on the slope some distance away, motionless, also looking down. There were actually two riders on the same horse. One of them was clad in white flowing robes and had long blond ringlets.
Rebecca herself. Harley felt the breath hiss into his lungs and was instantly aware of the constable beside him raising his gun to his shoulder and taking aim. But the other rider and Ceris were almost up to her and were going to come abreast of her on the near side.
“No!” he said again with quiet urgency.
A hero’s prize was his for the taking moments later when both horsemen came galloping his way before veering off to continue uphill. But again the dark-clad horseman rode between Rebecca and any shot one of the constables might have had at her—him. And Ceris was pressed so close to the daughter’s body that there was no getting a shot at him. Yet had they stepped into the open and demanded that the riders stop and surrender, they would as like as not have been ridden down.
And so heroism passed him by and he knew bitter defeat.
It became more bitter when the dark rider turned upward and Harley found that Ceris’s head was turned to one side and that her eyes were open. For a fraction of a second that stretched into eternity they looked full into each other’s eyes.
Betrayer and betrayed. Though which way around it was, he did not quite know.
Marged clung wordlessly to Rebecca. She had never been on a galloping horse. Seated sideways without the benefit of a saddle beneath her, and with uneven hill country beneath the horse’s hooves and darkness all around, she could only sit very still and put her trust in the horsemanship of the man to whom she clung.
Were they being pursued? Or were they riding into an ambush? What on earth had Ceris been doing down on the road? What would have happened if she or Aled had been hit by that one bullet that had been fired? What if Rebecca had been caught? What if he were still caught? Her arms tightened involuntarily.
“Was that Idris Parry?” she asked, speaking for the first time since they had watched Aled rescue Ceris. “What did he say?”
“Is that his name?” Rebecca asked. “The child? He warned that there were people coming—presumably special constables. He pointed in the direction of Tegfan. The woman must have been bringing the same message. Aled Rhoslyn knows her?”
“Ceris Williams,” she said. “They were to marry, but Ceris is opposed to violence and destruction. She broke off their engagement.”
“But she came out tonight,” he said, “to warn him. I believe we are safe, Marged. We must have left any pursuit behind and I have taken a circuitous route.”
She looked around her for the first time. She had not realized that he was not taking the direct route home.
“You see how dangerous this all is, Marged?” he said. “Some of us could have been captured or killed tonight. Aled and his woman came very close. And things are not going to get easier. This is just the beginning.”
She turned her face in to his shoulder again. “I know,” she said fiercely. “I know. But don’t continue in the way I know you are planning to continue. Don’t. And do stop and take off your disguise. You are far more likely to be seen and caught while you look this way.”
Reaction was setting in and the realization of what might have happened tonight and what might yet happen. She could see behind her closed eyes Rebecca riding up against the skyline and calling down to the men hiding inside the tollhouse—men with guns. And she could feel the near panic there had been all around her down on the road when Rebecca had quickly and firmly—and quite calmly—sent them on their way. He had not rushed himself. As usual he had been the last to leave, focusing all the real danger on himself so that the rest of them might get away safely. He might so easily have been caught or shot. As Aled had been shot at. She turned dizzy at the remembered sound of that shot.
The horse had stopped galloping. Rebecca’s breath was warm against her ear. “You are shaking,” he said. “You are just beginning to understand, aren’t you?”
Her teeth chattered when she tried to speak. “Y-yes,” she managed to get out at last. “I am b-beginning to understand what my husband must have felt like on that night at T-Tegfan and I am beginning to remember how I felt. I am beginning to realize what might have happened to you tonight and to all the others. But fear and t-trembling are not an indication of cowardice or a sign that like a good girl I will now go home where I belong and stay there.”
He chuckled. “No, Marged,” he said. “You do not have to go at me so fiercely. Cowardice is the last thing I would accuse you of. And feminine weakness is the second-last thing. I am shaking myself. It is a natural human reaction to danger that is past.”
“And perhaps not even that,” she said. “We still have to get safely home. I have just recognized where we are. We are up on the moors above Tegfan. I am close to home. Let me down and ride on as fast as you can. Perhaps when I am gone you will take off the disguise and be a great deal safer. It is because of me you will not take it off, isn’t it? You still do not trust me. But I don’t blame you. Set me down.” And yet she clung to him and breathed in the smell of him. She did not want it to be over so fast. She was only just realizing that he had taken her up with him, that she was this close to him again, that she might never be this close again. But he must go. He must get safely home.
“Not just yet,” he said. “There is a shelter up here somewhere. An old building. Close to here—I have seen it. Come there with me. We both need time to calm down.”
Geraint’s old hovel. He must be referring to that. Her stomach turned over when she remembered what had happened there just the day before. She had felt such a strange, unwilling tenderness. . . . But she did not want to think of that. She was with Rebecca, the man she passionately loved.
“Besides,” he said into her ear, “I don’t want to say good night yet, Marged. I want to make love to you.”
Her stomach turned over again.
“Will you?” He was whispering.
“Yes.” It did not matter that it would happen inside Geraint’s old home. Perhaps being there with Rebecca would purge her memory and her emotions of an unwelcome attachment—though it was not quite that, surely.
He found her mouth with his own briefly and rode on a short distance. They had been closer than she had realized. He dismounted, lifted her to the ground, and tethered his horse at the dark, higher side of the house before taking down the blanket rolled behind his saddle, and leading her by the hand to the dark doorway of the old house.
He had not consciously ridden up onto the moors. Or in the direction of the old hovel. But as soon as he knew where he was, he understood the unconscious workings of his mind. He had needed to come back here. With Marged. He needed to go inside the hut as he had not been able to bring himself to do yesterday. With her. It would be pitch-dark inside. He would not be able to see anything. But he needed to go in anyway—to face any ghosts that might be lingering there.
He needed Marged there with him. He needed her as he had needed her yesterday. She had responded to him with sympathy and a little more than sympathy yesterday as Geraint Penderyn. She would respond to him tonight as Rebecca. He put out of his mind the meanness of the deception. He needed her warmth. He needed her love.